RealClearPolitics Presidents’ Day Quotation Quiz

“We hold these truths to be self-evident …”

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

“I am not a crook.”

“Our long national nightmare is over.”

A slew of utterances by U.S. presidents have entered American’s collective consciousness, but the 45 men who have served as commander in chief formulated many felicitous expressions – before, during, and after they assumed office.

The overwhelming majority of their words will never be etched in marble – and shouldn’t be. As our nation celebrates Presidents’ Day, RCP has unearthed 15 examples of what John Adams (in homage to Thomas Jefferson’s prose) called “felicity of expression.” Your job is to match the quote with the author.

We certainly realize that in our era of instant Googling, pop quizzes are easy to beat. But what’s the fun in that? So this is not an open book test: Make your best guess – and be prepared for a few surprises. A final note: There are three trick questions: i.e., the quotations did not come from presidents. One is by a former vice president who failed in his own bid for the presidency, another by a presidential nominee who lost handily; the third is by a former first lady.

1. “Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you’re going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book.”
2. “The accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence. We want wealth, but there are many other things that we want very much more. We want peace and honor, and that charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism.”
3. “When I was married at the age of 22 and relishing an active sex life, I assumed that this was a pleasure that my middle-aged parents rarely, if ever, enjoyed. Now, well past 70, [we] have learned to accommodate each other’s desires more accurately and generously, and have never had a more complete and enjoyable relationship.”
4. “There are words of mine floating around in the air that I would like to reach up and eat.”
5. “I like to dream of a future better than the history of the past.”
6. “Of course I deprecate war, but if it is brought to my door, the bringer will find me at home.”
7. “In America, a woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do.”
8. “The credit of the family depends chiefly on whether that family is living within its income. And that is equally true of the nation.”
9. “We want no wars of conquest. We must avoid the temptation of territorial aggression. War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed. Peace is preferable to war in almost every contingency.”
10. “What is America expected to do? She is expected to do nothing less than keep law alive while the rest of the world burns.”
11. “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”
12. “From the earliest days of this nation, African American leaders, pioneers, and visionaries have uplifted and inspired our country in art, in science, literature, law, film, politics, business, and every arena of national life. The depth and glory of these contributions are beyond measure. You know it. I know it. And everybody knows it.”
13. “It is one of my sources of happiness never to desire a knowledge of other people’s business.”
14. “There are those who say this issue of civil rights is an infringement on states’ rights. The time has arrived for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!”
15. “Laughter and liberty go well together.”

ANSWERS:

1. Dwight Eisenhower at Dartmouth College commencement, June 14, 1953.
2. Calvin Coolidge, in a Jan.17, 1925, speech. For decades, liberals derided Republicans for a single line in that speech: “After all, the chief business of the American people is business.” But that was a setup for his real point about The media should have gotten that one right: Coolidge’s speech was given to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
3. Jimmy Carter in “The Virtues of Aging,” a book he wrote 17 years after leaving the Oval Office. During his book tour, Carter said his wife “made me tone that [section] down a little.”
4. Barry Goldwater said this long after losing the 1964 presidential election in a landslide. It wasn’t all Goldwater’s fault: The American people weren’t going to choose their third president in than 11 months. But Goldie made it worse than it had to be with his sometimes strident rhetoric and famous flippancy. (Asked about President Kennedy’s goal of sending a rocket to the moon, the GOP nominee deadpanned, “Let’s lob one into the men’s room of the Kremlin.”)
5. Thomas Jefferson, in an Aug. 1, 1816, letter to his old foe-turned pen-pal John Adams. Adams replied eight days later: “Upon this Principle I prophecy that you and I Shall Soon meet and be better Friends than ever.”
6. James A. Garfield. An Internet search produces vague sourcing for this line: “Garfield told his cabinet,” or “Garfield once quipped” or “Garfield wrote in a letter to a friend.” Actually, as biographer Candice Millard shows, this gem is in Garfield’s diary – a self-reminder that although he was “a poor hater,” he’d have to rekindle the fighting instincts honed as a Union Army officer.
7. Richard Nixon, in 1969 remarks to the League of Women Voters. Nixon predicted that America would someday have a female president, pointing out that Israel, Ceylon, and India were already led by women. An interesting footnote on that point: 2½ years later, he would host Indira Gandhi, at the White House. Later, the Nixon tapes revealed that afterwards he and Henry Kissinger denigrated Gandhi as “a bitch,” with Nixon adding, “We really slobbered over the old witch.”
8. Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a major economic speech in Pittsburgh two weeks before Election Day in 1932. FDR excoriated Republicans for dealing with the Depression by deficit spending, which he termed “a veritable cancer in the body politic.” FDR vowed to balance the budget and slash “government operations” by 25%. He never attempted either. Four years later, before a campaign stop in Pennsylvania, he asked his staff what he should say if the earlier speech arose. Quipped speechwriter Sam Rosenman: “Deny you were ever in Pittsburgh.”
9. William McKinley, in his March 4, 1897, inaugural address. As the last of five Civil War veterans elected president, McKinley had credibility: At 18, he was the first man from his Ohio hometown to enlist and was recognized for bravery under fire at Antietam. Yet 13 months after these words, the U.S. was at war with Spain. Moreover, despite McKinley’s disclaimer about territorial conquest, when the four-month Spanish-American war ended, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines were ceded to the U.S.
10. Woodrow Wilson, Feb. 1, 1916. Speaking in Des Moines, the president discussed his agonizing dilemma: Whether the U.S. should enter World War I. When war broke out in 1914, he’d called on Americans to remain neutral “in thought as well as in action.” In 1916, his campaign reelection slogan was “He kept us out of war!” But less than a month after his second inauguration, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany.
11. You guessed Donald Trump, right? Nope, this is Barack Obama, as he began running for president in 2008 – speaking to his political director, Patrick Gaspard.
12. Donald Trump, Feb. 21, 2019, at a White House reception honoring African American History Month. The president singled out black military veterans – and civil rights leaders. “Every citizen alive today, and generations yet unborn, are forever in debt of the brave souls who stared down injustice and championed the eternal cause of civil rights,” he said.
13. This is from Dolley Madison, who lived in the White House from 1809 to 1817. She was commenting on the corroding effects of gossip, the irony being that unlike several first ladies who came later, she had no reason to worry about idle chatter in her own domicile concerning the “the great little Madison,” as she once called the diminutive, brilliant Virginian during their courtship.
14. Hubert H. Humphrey, July 14, 1948. HHH, as the headline writers liked to refer to him, would become a prominent senator from Minnesota, Lyndon Johnson’s vice president, and the 1968 Democratic Party presidential nominee. At the time of his fiery 1948 convention speech, which prompted a walkout by Southern Democrats, he was a 37-year-old mayor from Minneapolis. Although they wouldn’t put it quite this way, the liberal mayor of Minneapolis and a hundred other “sanctuary cities” have a renewed ardor for state’s rights as they do battle with the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
15. Gerald R. Ford, July 3, 1976, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. That year, Ford gave many speeches celebrating the nation’s bicentennial. On this evening the president was the warm-up act, if you can believe that, for comedian Bob Hope.

Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics and executive editor of RealClearMedia Group. Reach him at ccannon@realclearpolitics.com or on X @CarlCannon.